About Me

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

MY ALASKA VACATION, 2011, Part 12

I was a passenger in the front seat of Dennis’s Toyota Tundra truck on the way to Homer from Anchorage; Carrie and Will shared the back seat. Mom and Lolly drove in Mom’ Subaru station wagon.

We arrived in Homer @ 2:15PM.The water taxi, “The Toriega” was due to depart from the Homer Spit at 3:00PM, so we had some time to kill. Carrie had craving for chocolate chip cookies, so we stopped at the “Two Sisters Bakery”, a favorite haunt of Dennis and Carrie’s from when Carrie used to work in Homer one day a week. The bakery is a Silverlake/ Echo Park style hipster hang out, seems to be run by young lesbians or straight women who could be lesbians. It seem like the sort of place that ought to have poetry readings, open mike nights, etc., though I can’t see any place where they could do it. Lots of cool pastries, cookies, muffins; all home made. And, of course, various coffees, teas, etc.

We reached the small boat harbor on the spit around 2:30. I set out to find chewing gum to help with my acid reflux, which was in high gear. Carrie tasked me with acquiring a tide schedule. She suggested I try Target Tours, a tour/gift shop across the street.

The lady running the cash register regretfully informed me they had no gum but gave me a free tide sched and directed me to the General Store on the opposite side of the Salty Dog Saloon at the end of the Spit.

I got back to the cars around 2:45; Dennis and Will were still unloading our gear from the back of the Toyota Tundra. We started carrying it down the steep, long (100 feet?) gang plank to the small boat harbor docks, to the water taxi, thankfully close to the bottom of the gang plank. I passed the gear from the pier to the Skipper and his nephew, who was studying computer science at Fairbanks University.

The taxi was heading into a fairly stiff wind that kicked up moderate white caps, causing large amounts of spray shooting over the covered bow, onto the open stern. Anything out there would be quickly drenched. Sheila went out to explore, lapped up some of the salty water on the stern’s floor. She retreated into the cabin, licking her chops to get rid of the unexpectedly salty taste.

The taxi let us off on the black gravel beach; it turned out the rain boots were almost unnecessary. After we carried our gear up the beach and hill to the cabin we were left to our own devices. I sat on the back porch and sketched the bay, including a small boar one of our neighbors used for regular transportation. I then sat up on the beach to do a reverse angle on the cabin. This was difficult; the foliage on the hillside so obscured the cabin, and it was at such an odd upshot, that a photograph wouldn’t have been successful. I decided that this was a perfect reason for me to do a sketch. I could cheat and edit like crazy, using my 28 years of professional animation training to create the scene as it should be, not as it actually was. Oddly, this was a slight revelation for me. One of my self-critiques is that my drawings lack imagination; it’s like I’m photo-swiping from life. I feel as if I’ve had some sort of minor breakthrough. This is the cool thing about drawing rather than taker of snap shots. I realize that this is why I haven’t bothered bringing along a camera on my last several trips. There’s no skin in the game, no interpretation. Just click and shoot. Why bother?

If you want to see these sketches, see the PART 1posting; I put them up there.